TY - GEN
T1 - Concentrated Solar Flux Assessment of Water Lens Collector
AU - Natarajan, M.
AU - Sekhar, Y. Raja
AU - Chiranjeevi, C.
AU - Srinivas, Tangellapalli
AU - Bicer, Yusuf
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - The harnessing of abundant solar thermal energy is a major challenge for research. In this scenario, a solar water lens collector is developed and its performance is investigated experimentally. A linear low-density polyethylene plastic transparent (LLDPE) sheet filled with plain distilled water is established as a water lens concentrating collector, which behaves as a convex lens. A spirally coiled copper tube fitted on the copper plate enclosed by wooden cabinet with a top surface covered by a glass plate that is used as the receiver. The performance of the solar water lens collector is evaluated by a thermodynamical approach. The water lens concentrating collector can be developed by using simple technology at a low cost. The intensity of solar flux falling on the receiver surface is observed as 4.5–6.3 times the solar flux falling on the horizontal surface. In this paper, the performance of the collector is evaluated at three foci points of the receiver from the collector at 60 cm, 90 cm from the ground, and at the ground. The instantaneous collector energy conversion efficiency of the water lens collector is achieved in the range of 70–94%. The collector and receivers are scalable and hence this collector may be suitable for residential, commercial, and also for industrial applications.
AB - The harnessing of abundant solar thermal energy is a major challenge for research. In this scenario, a solar water lens collector is developed and its performance is investigated experimentally. A linear low-density polyethylene plastic transparent (LLDPE) sheet filled with plain distilled water is established as a water lens concentrating collector, which behaves as a convex lens. A spirally coiled copper tube fitted on the copper plate enclosed by wooden cabinet with a top surface covered by a glass plate that is used as the receiver. The performance of the solar water lens collector is evaluated by a thermodynamical approach. The water lens concentrating collector can be developed by using simple technology at a low cost. The intensity of solar flux falling on the receiver surface is observed as 4.5–6.3 times the solar flux falling on the horizontal surface. In this paper, the performance of the collector is evaluated at three foci points of the receiver from the collector at 60 cm, 90 cm from the ground, and at the ground. The instantaneous collector energy conversion efficiency of the water lens collector is achieved in the range of 70–94%. The collector and receivers are scalable and hence this collector may be suitable for residential, commercial, and also for industrial applications.
KW - Concentrated solar flux
KW - LLDPE sheet
KW - Water lens collector
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85118152836
U2 - 10.1007/978-981-16-4489-4_3
DO - 10.1007/978-981-16-4489-4_3
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85118152836
SN - 9789811644887
T3 - Lecture Notes in Mechanical Engineering
SP - 23
EP - 29
BT - Innovations in Energy, Power and Thermal Engineering - Select Proceedings of ICITFES 2020
A2 - Palanisamy, Muthukumar
A2 - Natarajan, Sendhil Kumar
A2 - Jayaraj, Simon
A2 - Sivalingam, Murugan
PB - Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH
T2 - International Conference on Innovations in Thermo-Fluid Engineering and Sciences, ICITFES 2020
Y2 - 10 February 2020 through 12 February 2020
ER -